European Space Agency Selects Cybernetica to Research Machine Learning for Cyber Situational Awareness

Cybernetica has been awarded a contract by the European Space Agency (ESA) to develop a tool for improving cybersecurity management through machine learning. The project, named Minerva, de-risks the machine learning approach to improve threat and vulnerability management in order to reduce the workload of cybersecurity specialists.

The activity will focus on implementing a cyber situational awareness platform and building a machine learning software system that can be integrated into the ESA cybersecurity toolkit. Using machine learning algorithms for triaging reduces the volume of alerts that would otherwise be processed manually. This allows for quicker response to security incidents by allowing the specialists to focus on higher severity tasks.

“Collaboration with ESA in such an innovative domain is a great privilege for Cybernetica. Our core expertise is in mission-critical systems and information security research - we are excited to apply our knowledge to foster innovation by using cutting-edge technology and strengthen the competitiveness of the European space industry,“ said Oliver Väärnõu, CEO of Cybernetica.

Developing a solution that uses machine learning algorithms for increasing cyber situational awareness will improve interoperability, quality, and triaging by reducing waste in cybersecurity specialists’ workload, ensure better alert detection, as well as filtering and mitigation of cyber threats.

„We want to improve the overall transparency and efficiency of managing cyber threats by providing ESA with the right tools and making cybersecurity processes more seamless. Based on our experience in designing machine learning and privacy-preserving models in cooperation with international research facilities, we are glad to be creating the environment to leverage machine learning for ESA,” added Baldur Kubo, Project Manager at Cybernetica.

The activity is supported through ESA’s General Support Technology Programme (GSTP), under which the European space industry develops leading edge space technologies that enable missions to discover the Universe, understand our environment, navigate, educate and save lives. For over 25 years, GSTP has demonstrated itself as a successful key for building know-how and capabilities in the industry. It is one of the best instruments in ESA to assuring European competitiveness in the global market, creating jobs and keeping Europe at the forefront of technological innovation.

Cybernetica is an Estonian IT company that takes fundamental technologies from early stage of research to global markets. Cybernetica performs industrial research with international agencies (EDA, DARPA, NICT et al) at all TRL levels. Cybernetica's core expertise is in mission-critical systems, operational technology, information security, cryptography, and protocol analysis.